Make sure people know who you are

Among all the paperwork I filled at the beginning of school year, one of the most important was the paper that listed people I allowed to pick my kids up at school if I can’t make it.

It seems like it’s just extra paperwork but it is certainly one of the most important documents. It reinforces the relationship of trust between the establishment and me. Moreover, it gives an identity to everyone who will be in contact with the school on my behalf. No one wants to be in the news because the school allowed a “so-called auntie” to pick up the child. An auntie who has now disappeared…

With certainly less issues at stake (!), it’s what you’re doing while sending newsletters. You have to be clearly identified right in your recipients’ mailbox as someone trusted to communicate with them. And the best way to do that, is to use your own domain in the email address you choose to send your newsletters from.

Let’s have a look at this example: let’s say someone called Suzie from “My Lovely Cupcake, Co” is preparing a newsletter to send it to her customer, Myriam.

To do this, Suzie sends her email using the email address: “suzie@mylovelycupcakes.com”. Then, CakeMail will get Kevin to deliver (well, we don’t literally send Kevin) this newsletter to Myriam.

By using an email address that uses her own domain (“mylovelycupcakes.com”), the newsletter will contain the information that says: “Hi! I’m coming from suzie@mylovelycupcakes.com and she asked me to deliver this newsletter to her subscriber myriam@gmail.com”. The email will be stopped and verified by Gmail and/or Myriam’s personal spam filter, who will decide if they feel confident enough to let this newsletter reach Myriam’s inbox. This verification will confirm that the email originally came from “My Lovely Cupcakes” (among other checks).

But, this process can only work if you use a domain you own – ideally, the same one as people use to find your website. Using a domain you own is the only way to be identified. So, be aware that even if mylovelycupcakes@yahoo.com or mylovelycupcakes@gmail.com is your email address, you don’t own or work for yahoo.com or gmail.com. Therefore, your identity can’t be established. Webmail providers are particularly difficult to convince when it’s time to deliver emails sent from a third party, like any email marketing service like us. Moreover, Yahoo and AOL simply block those emails.

Yes, it’s true: having your own domain is certainly extra ‘paperwork’ for you and a few bucks per year. We are well aware of that. But using your own domain will help you build a relationship of trust among all interested parties. It will definitely help the messages you send land in the inboxes of your subscribers instead being stopped their door. Not to mention the importance of promoting your brand by using your domain.